Adam Weinstein

"America has always been a nation where hard work and creativity pay off, where upward mobility was the aspired goal," Michele Bachmann blogged Wednesday, appealing "to lift more people out of poverty." Fuck that noise. You know where it's at? The servant-owning leisure class of English lords and ladies, bitches!

The photo—which first surfaced on Bachmann daughter Sophia's Facebook page—is a reference to the upper-crust Tory twits of Downton Abbey, because nothing amplifies the American Dream of moving up the socioeconomic ladder like a gaggle of English blue-bloods who live in the lovely rose-tinged mansion-keeping age of muscular Christianity, patriarchy, pointless wars, wealth inequality, family-financed welfare, and stoic suck-it-upness.

Come to think of it, there's a lot of convergence with the Bachmanns' family values there. But if they're going for Downton veritè, I've a few beefs with their family photo:

None of the posh poots from Downton has a beard like Marcus Bachmann, um, has a beard.

This stodgy stiff-upper-lip Old Money game doesn't really seem like it's in Bachmann Abbey's wheelhouse. They should probably stick to color-coordinated lap-sitting. Now this is an American family, right here: